


A Study In Heartbreak

by superangsty



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Multi, So much angst, he is in fact a very heartbroken bunny, i dont know why i keep calling him a bunny, sherlock is not a happy bunny, sorry i'll stop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 06:18:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3681180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superangsty/pseuds/superangsty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock had never understood the term ‘heartbreak’. The heart did not affect emotions, it had no capacity for love. It was simply an organ, designed only to pump blood around the body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study In Heartbreak

Sherlock had never understood the term ‘heartbreak’. The heart did not affect emotions, it had no capacity for love. It was simply an organ, designed only to pump blood around the body. It was a necessity, not a thing to be romanticised. If anything were to be blamed for the human condition referred to as ‘feelings’, it would be the brain. The brain processed a person’s thoughts, their entire life, really. The brain was, he believed, the closest anyone could get to having a soul. If a person were to fall in love, it would be with their brain, not with their heart. On valentine’s cards, there should be pictures of brains, not of those funny little shapes which people insisted on calling hearts (if they _had_ to put hearts on these things, they could at least have the decency to make them anatomically correct, although people are always lazy and the incorrect version is probably easier to draw). And this thing, this so-called heartbreak, would be called brain-break instead. Not that anything was being broken.

He supposed that ‘heartbreak’ had a nicer ring to it.

But Sherlock referred to it (the mind, that is) as the heart anyway, despite how idiotic he found it. Using the term saved him from having to explain himself to others whilst he was in the middle of talking about something else.

Moriarty had used the word, too. He said he would ‘burn the heart’ out of Sherlock. Of course, he could have meant it literally, could have been planning on ripping the heart out of Sherlock’s chest and setting it alight, watch it slowly burn away, but Moriarty had never struck him as the type of person to get his hands dirty. He could only have meant the metaphorical heart. At the time, Sherlock hadn’t understood why he’d said this. Sherlock did not have a ‘heart’. Emotions were for other, more stupid people than him. Emotions were for people like John (not that John was stupid. Sherlock had made the mistake of once telling him that despite knowing that he was, in fact, very intelligent. Even now, he still regretted saying that.) The criminal must have seen something he didn’t though, because it turned out that Sherlock did have a heart, after all.

That heart went by the name of John Watson.

Sherlock was not in love with John, he couldn’t possibly be. Love wasn’t written in his book. If his gaze lingered over him for just a little too long, it was for no reason other than that he still had one more deduction to make. If he found himself craving the time that they spent together, it was simply because everybody else on the entire godforsaken planet was _boring_. Everyone except John, that is. Sherlock was not himself, when he was with John. The doctor brought out the better side of him, if such a side even existed. And maybe, just maybe, he wanted to…react, in some way, whenever John corrected somebody’s assumptions about the two of them being in a relationship. Maybe. But none of that meant that he was in _love_ with the man.

Whatever the feeling was, that made Sherlock feel all fuzzy inside when John so much as smiled at him, was irrelevant. He never told John about it, he never had any reason to. They were good as friends. They ran around London, and solved crimes, and laughed about it afterwards. That had always been enough for Sherlock. He never even allowed himself to imagine their relationship being more than that, because if he did, he was sure that his feelings would spiral out of control. And if that were to happen, John might notice, which would of course be an earth-shattering disaster. Because if John _ever_ knew, had even an inkling of what was going through Sherlock’s mind, things would get awkward.

He would be kind, of course. John was always kind, it was in his nature. But it would be the wrong sort of kind, the pitying sort. Sherlock did not need anybody’s pity. And, even with the kindness, John would slowly start to withdraw. He would speak to Sherlock less, say he was afraid of hurting him, and eventually, he would leave 221b. This was unacceptable. John couldn’t leave, John belonged with Sherlock. Which was why he could never know.

And then Sherlock had died. Well, he hadn’t actually died, but how could John know that? What matters is that John believed him to be dead, and he still hadn’t told him. Honestly, Sherlock had expected to die at some point during the two years it took him to completely dismantle Moriarty’s criminal network. He swore to himself that if he ever made it back to John, he would be completely honest, wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of him having his ‘heart’, not this time. And then Mycroft brought him home, and Sherlock finally found himself face to face with John Watson. And his moustache. Whilst the doctor was in the middle of proposing to Mary Morstan. To say the least, the circumstances were less than ideal.

It was then, standing in the restaurant, that Sherlock was stabbed. He had been stabbed before, of course, but this time it was straight through his heart. His real, actual, literal heart. In his chest. He found it incredibly unlikely that he would survive such an attack, and yet everyone was continuing about their business as if nothing was wrong. John was a doctor, for crying out loud! Wasn’t he meant to make at least some attempt to save his best friend’s life, or did he really care so little? Although, come to think of it, he hadn’t even heard anybody come up behind him, not even the sound of a knife being drawn, and he rarely missed things like that. Perhaps they had thrown the knife, but there was something else missing too. Blood? There was none of that, but that wasn’t what struck him as particularly odd. No, it was the lack of the cold piece of metal lodged in his back that surprised him the most. He hadn’t felt anybody remove it, so it must still be there. But it most definitely wasn’t.

He hadn’t actually been stabbed, but the pain in his chest refused to go away. There were times when it softened to a dull ache, but even then it was still very much there. He didn’t mention it to John. John would probably tell him he was getting ill, and give him medication. Medication slowed his brain, so he definitely didn’t want any of that. Was this what flu felt like? Perhaps, Sherlock had never had flu, so had no other data to go by.

There was a moment, at the wedding, when Sherlock genuinely believed that he was about to die. He was giving his best man speech, doing a rather good job of it too, in his ever so humble opinion, when his brain suddenly decided to register that _John and Mary were married_. The pain in his chest greatened to such an extent that he was almost certain he had been torn in two. He knew that, just like in the restaurant, there would be no blood, so he had to force himself not to look down, in case anybody thought something was wrong. The pain was so intense that he wanted to scream, but he didn’t. He simply smiled at the newlyweds, and raised his glass for a toast.

It was in that moment that he finally understood the concept of heartbreak.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! (I will be hopefully posting some more fluffy things soon because I feel like I write too much angst) As always, please please please leave comments below! I love hearing what you guys think (or even your criticism and questions etc etc)
> 
> Also, I now have a [tumblr](http://superangsty.tumblr.com), so feel free to check it out!


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